(no subject)

[ramtops]

perlmonger has already blogged our weekend, which is a bit rich, really.

it was mostly spent working, although that's not so bad as it sounds. I reckon that in twelve hours over the weekend, I got as much done as I would in four working days - no phone calls or e-mails to disturb me. I'm reskinning one of our big sites, and turning the last bits of it into database-y stuff, so it's good to be able to get my head down and get on with it without interruptions. It went well.

Sainsburys had raw tiger prawns, so on Saturday night we cooked up a sauce of lemon grass poached in coconut milk, with liquidised fresh coriander, garlic, red chili, some shrimp paste, sugar and fish sauce. Simmer for half an hour, then add the prawns - cook for a few minutes, toss in some fresh basil leaves, and eat with lemon jasmine rice. Fab.

Sunday evening we wandered up to the Ashton Court Music Festival (the web site is absolutely useless) - seemed only fair, as it's at the end of our village. It was a beautiful evening, and we mooched about buying bits of hippy tat and just watching the people. There was a wonderful variety of food stalls - we ate falafel and hummus in pitta, and later some cajun chips with garlic dip. But we could have chosen from japanese, thai, crepes, various organic vegetarian and vegan options, proper meat sossidges, and more that I cannot now remember, as well as the traditional English Fayre of dodgy burgers and fish 'n' chips. I was particularly pleased to find a stall with 16 different types of tea - sadly they had run out of Earl Grey, so I had to slum it with Lapsang (perlmonger had Darjeeling).

a lovely evening - even the portaloos were clean and chemically fragrant, and hardly any queuing. And it's put me in the mood for our trip to the Trowbridge Village Pump Festival next weekend.

however, like perlmonger, I was both angry and depressed to see the mounds of rubbish strewn all over the site. There were copious dustbins, which were being emptied regularly, but people just seemed to drop their litter where they stood. I simply don't understand it - do they have no concern about their environment? Would they do this in someone else's garden? I wonder if it is just another British malaise, or is it a worldwide thing now?